


Start As You Mean To Go On

by spudking



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, Fluff, New Year's Fluff, Opal is the biggest Korrasami Shipper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 00:48:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5607340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spudking/pseuds/spudking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New Year's Eve is the best time for fun, friendship, and potentially life-changing revelations about your best friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Start As You Mean To Go On

Korra’s head was already starting to spin. Maybe she shouldn’t have let Opal mix the cocktail jugs. Maybe she shouldn’t have drunk most of a jug. The flat was way too crowded; the very walls seemed to be sweating in the heat. Korra looked around the room, trying to find a familiar face. Nope. Who the fuck even were these people?  
“Kor!”  
Korra turned towards the shout. Opal was waving from the balcony doors and Korra was only too happy to elbow her way through the crowd and step out into the blissful cool of the evening.  
“Where did you find these people?” She asked, not expecting an answer beyond the shrug she received. Teammates, classmates, workmates, all sorts of people that were better than acquaintances but, as Korra would have been rather quick to admit in her current condition, not the people that she actually wanted to be around right now. She leaned against the railing, looking down at the small garden with its little roped off section, spotting one of the few people to make that very select list. _Bless Asami and her over-cautiousness about small explosives and drunks._ Beside her Opal snorted, and Korra realised she’d spoken aloud.  
“You have it _bad_ ,” Opal laughed and Korra gave her a playful shove that nearly knocked her over. “C’mon, Korra. Admit it!”  
“I...” Korra looked down at the raven haired woman carefully stepping up the rockets. “It’s Asami.”  
“I know.”  
“No, Opal. It’s _Asami._ ”  
“I. Know.”  
Korra made an impatient gesture as she struggled to find the words. It was a common state of affairs when it came to thinking about Asami. Opal saw the mental struggle plain as day. She rolled her eyes. “Korra, please don’t tell me that you’re playing the ‘I don’t want to ruin our friendship’ card.” The silence was answer enough.

“Unbelievable.” Opal sighed, but she was smiling. Korra shifted her feet uncomfortably. “You really don’t know?”  
“Know what? Airspeed velocity of unladen swallow? ‘s about 11 meters a second.”  
Opal gave her a suspicious look, taking in the slight colouration of her cheeks.  
“Asami told you that, didn’t she?”  
Once again Korra let silence be her answer. Opal shook her head in mock despair. “You two are the coupleiest couple to ever exist, you know that?”  
“We’re not a couple!” Korra objected.  
“Oh? And how do you figure that?” Opal turned to face her, half her face illuminated in the living room light.  
“I...” Korra’s voice failed. “She doesn’t...” She tried again. Opal raised one eyebrow.  
“She’s been single for the last _year_ , Korra.”  
“Because Iroh fucking ditched her because she was spending all her time getting me back on my feet!”  
Opal’s other eyebrow joined its twin.  
“Is that what she told you?”  
“Is that...” Korra echoed but trailed off, utterly lost. Opal took pity on her.  
“Iroh didn’t dump Asami, Kor. _She_ left _him_.”

Korra stared at Opal in the half-light, trying to make sense of what she’d said.  
“She loved him...” She said without conviction.  
“He had a lot of good qualities,” Opal conceded. “Loyal, trustworthy, dependable, _hot_. But apparently he was lacking something.” She smiled at Korra’s confusion. “He wasn’t you, you doofus.”  
Korra stared down at the figure below, currently laughing with Mako, oblivious to her scrutiny. Obliviousness was apparently their standard state of affairs.  
“She didn’t tell me.”  
Opal gave her a strange look.  
“Of course she didn’t. How could she drop that on you back then? You weren’t in a good place, you weren’t in any state to deal with that and you know it.”  
“I wasn’t that much of an invalid!” Korra protested.  
“Not two minutes ago you admitted you were afraid to try it with Asami _now_ , when she isn’t the only person who can get you to eat,” Opal said frankly.  
“I...” Korra swallowed. “Ok. Yeah, maybe,” she conceded reluctantly.  
“Somewhere out there Katara heard you admit that and did a backflip,” Opal told her and it was Korra’s turn to roll her eyes.

“You really think she’d go for it?” korra asked, in a voice far quieter than usual. “For me?”  
For perhaps half a moment Opal considered messing with her but there was something in Korra’s expression. Besides, she’d been rooting for this for entirely too long now.  
“I really do. Now come on, it’s...” she checked her watch. “You’ve got five minutes to start this year properly. So get your wonderfully toned butt down there and go tell her!”

Opal had meant for Korra to use the stairs. Not to vault the barrier and jump from a first floor balcony, rolling with the impact, drunks barely getting out of the way in time. Korra got to her feet, coming level with a pair of green eyes.  
“Hey.” Korra managed.  
“Hey,” Asami smiled. Korra swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. She wished she hadn’t left her cup up with Opal. Asami was wearing her favourite leather jacket, the black one with the red accents, but it looked different. Korra caught the navy cloth sticking out over the high collar, almost hidden under Asami’s hair.  
“Are you wearing my hoody under that?” _Oh right, because that’s what you came down here to ask, idiot._  
“It’s cold!” Asami said defensively, ignorant of Korra’s mental facepalm. “And they’re just...they’re really soft, ok? And warm.”  
“No problem. Although I could always warm you up.”  
The words came out before Korra’s brain could engage. Asami gave her a slightly curious look. If her eyes flickered up to Opal on the balcony for a moment Korra didn’t notice.  
“Sure.” She said at last. “Let me just light the fuses, ok? I’ve got this all timed perfectly and I’m going to be pissed if it goes late.”

Korra let Asami lay out a long and complicated bundle of fuses, leading to a whole mess of fireworks. She pulled out a lighter and put the flame to it.  
“Two minutes to midnight!” She yelled up to the balcony, where Bolin had joined Opal. The others began shuffling towards the doors as Asami came over to Korra, wrapping her arms around her.  
“My personal heater,” Asami smiled down at her. And this time Korra caught the glance, however momentary, towards her lips.  
“One minute!” Bolin called from behind them. Korra looked at Asami, _really_ looked, taking it all in like she was coming up from anaesthesia all over again, trying to calm her racing heartbeat.  
“Thirty seconds!”  
 Maybe Opal was putting thoughts in her head. Maybe she was reading too much into this. Maybe she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life and ruin the best friendship she’d ever had.  
“Korra?” Asami looked down at her, away from her primed fireworks. “You ok?”  
“Twenty seconds!”  
_You can do this. Be smooth. Super smooth. Stroke of midnight, all romantic and stuff. It’ll be perfect._

Korra kissed her before the countdown reached ten.

They didn’t break apart when Asami’s painstakingly arranged display began to crackle and spark, explosions lighting the night sky, the little garden filling with smoke and the smell of cordite. It was long after the last rocket had fizzed into the sky, blooming into a thousand golden stars and faded away, that they parted. The noise of the party and of a dozen other displays hummed away in the background somewhere.  
“Happy new year, Asami,” Korra told her, as Asami’s cold fingers burned against her cheek and jaw, lifting her chin again.  
“Happy new year, Korra.” Asami smiled, leaning down. Not even Bolin whooping from the balcony and Opal loudly demanding her winnings from the betting pool could ruin the moment.

**Author's Note:**

> This just sort of happened. I blame cider.


End file.
